Erwin Chemerinsky

Remember Ted Cruz and the myth of the censored grandma? Despite Cruz's absurd fear mongering over nonexistent government censorship, the proposed Democracy for All Amendment to get big money out of politics would really protect the speech of ordinary Americans... because our voices are already being drowned out (and not by commonsense campaign finance regulations like the proposed amendment).

Noted constitutional law scholar Erwin Chemerinsky took to the op-ed page of The Hill last week to utterly dismantle Senator Ted Cruz's outlandish arguments against the proposed constitutional amendment to undo the consequences of decisions like Citizens United.

In his not-so-subtly titled op-ed "Ted Cruz should be ashamed," he wrote that while it is reasonable for Congress to debate the merits of a proposed amendment, Cruz’s claims about how the amendment would affect Americans are outright lies and "have no place in an informed debate."

Here’s Dean of UC Irvine School of Law Erwin Chemerinsky:

In a statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Cruz declared: "This amendment here today, if adopted, would repeal the free speech protections of the First Amendment. . . . This amendment, if adopted, would give Congress absolute authority to regulate the political speech of every single American, with no limitations whatsoever."

Similarly, in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Cruz said, the amendment "gives Congress power to regulate—and ban—speech by everybody." In remarks at the Family Research Council, Cruz declared: "What it [the proposed amendment] says is that politicians in Washington have unlimited constitutional authority to muzzle each and every one of you if you’re saying things that government finds inconvenient."

The amendment does nothing of the sort. It gives no authority to the government to ban or limit anyone's speech. It provides the government no power to "muzzle" messages the government doesn’t like. It does not change in any way the long-standing First Amendment principle that the government cannot restrict speech based on the content of the message or the views expressed. The amendment would do no more than allow the government to regulate spending in election campaigns.

Chemerinsky goes on to note that he has debated Cruz multiple times and knows that Cruz is "a person of great intelligence," who has had a distinguished legal career. Consequently, Chemerinsky concludes that Cruz's lies indicate that "he knows exactly what the proposed amendment would do and yet has chosen to vilify it by misrepresenting it."

Cruz responded to Chemerinsky in today’s The Hill, with an op-ed entitled “I did not lie.” Cruz accuses Chemerinsky of waging “personal insults” against him, and argues that Chemerinsky’s piece was invalid on a technicality, because he quoted from a slightly later iteration of the bill. Interestingly, Cruz’s response focuses far more on attacking Chemerinsky than on presenting – or clarifying – any valid argument against the constitutional amendment.